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Although it has been rumored since he took over the helm of the world's biggest tech company following the passing of founder Steve Jobs, Apple CEO Tim Cook has finally confirmed he is gay, posting an encouraging article on BusinessWeek.

I will post the article here in its entirety and without comment except to say that it refreshing to see someone in power share their experiences with the hope that it helps others in the daily lives.

Says Cook:

Throughout my professional life, I've tried to maintain a basic level of privacy. I come from humble roots, and I don't seek to draw attention to myself. Apple is already one of the most closely watched companies in the world, and I like keeping the focus on our products and the incredible things our customers achieve with them.

At the same time, I believe deeply in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, who said: "Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?' " I often challenge myself with that question, and I've come to realize that my desire for personal privacy has been holding me back from doing something more important. That's what has led me to today.

Outside of the highly-anticipated Nexus 6 (which no one can get their hands on, apparently), Motorola had another big announcement today, unveiling the Droid Turbo for Verizon.

The flagship Android device for the carrier packs high-end specs and will be available starting tomorrow.

Featuring a 5.2-inch QHD display (2560x1440 display), the device packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 quad-core processor clocked at 2.7GHz, 3GB RAM, 32GB internal storage (base model), dual cameras 2MP/21MP (including 4K recording) and a huge 3990mAH battery that should offer significant battery life even for heavy users.

At launch, the device will run Android 4.4.4 with an upgrade to Android 5.0 Lollipop in the cards in the near future.

With a two-year contract, the device will cost $199 (similar to the iPhone) or $25 per month if you use the Edge financing/early upgrade program.

Every year Google releases a new Nexus reference device and like clockwork the company has a botched launch every year, as well.

This year is no different as the company promised a 10/29 launch but did not provide a time. After the orders went live at 1:15PM (why?) the 32GB model of the phone, in midnight blue, sold out in 20 seconds to be followed by the white model in 45 seconds.

It is clear that Google has failed another launch, or has clearly not made enough units available for sale. The 64GB models still read as "coming soon" with no time frame for purchase.

Google, it is time to finally get this right and reward Nexus buyers. For the 5 people who were lucky enough to get one, the shipping time shows as 3-4 weeks.

Gaming giant Nintendo has returned to profitability this quarter thanks to strong sales of the blockbuster hit "Mario Kart 8" for the Wii U.

The quarter was so good that the company is now hopeful that it can be nicely profitable for its fiscal year for the first time in four years.

For the quarter ended September 30th, the company revealed a profit of 9.3 billion yen ($86 million) compared to a loss of 18 billion yen ($160 million) last year in the same period. A weaker yen helped contribute to the profit, added the company. The surprising quarter comes ahead of the expected good holiday quarter, which is a great sign for Nintendo.

For its fiscal year, the company forecasts a profit of 40 billion yen ($370 million), compared to a loss of almost the same amount for fiscal 2013.

Mario Kart, while being a strong seller on its own, helped push new Wii U sales, as well, with unit sales doubling year-over-year to 1.1 million. By comparison, Microsoft and Sony are selling well over 1 million units of their latest consoles, per month, but Nintendo has excitedly raised their yearly forecast for Wii U sales to 3.6 million.

Investors will be happy by the results, as well. Nintendo's shares have fallen 80 percent since their peak in 2007 on the back of the wild success of the original Wii and DS handheld.

If you liked the movie "Real Steel," the time is at hand to help a new startup company called MegaBots to build 15-feet tall, 7 ton piloted robots to duke it out, in real life.

The company has started a new Kickstarter campaign asking for $1.8 million so they can build robots for a fight to the "death" shooting paintball guns that can fire at 120 MPH.

So far, the company has built prototypes of the upper body (showing off the pilot's chair), arms, and the weapons system.

If you donate $2500, you get to pilot one of the robots in battle and if you donate the highest $10,000 you get tickets to the event and your company's logo (or your website, name, etc) placed right on the robot for advertisement. If you want to own the bot and have tons to spend, you can donate $1 million.

Read more about MegaBots here.

As they do every year, the industry trade group RIAA has submitted its list of the top 50 "rogue" piracy sites to the U.S. government, and as usual the group has taken some liberties with its verbage.

For example, the group says this year in the filing with the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) that "We must end this assault on our humanity and the misappropriation of fundamental human rights."

In addition, the group believes that many of the rogue sites believe they are operating to aid freedom of speech and government censorship, which is not true as they are still stealing other's copyrights to do so. "Some observers continue to suggest that the protection of expression is a form of censorship or restriction on fundamental freedoms, and some pirate sites cloak themselves in the language of freedom to justify themselves--sites like The Pirate Bay." added Neil Turkewitz, the RIAA's EVP. "We must end this assault on our humanity and the misappropriation of fundamental human rights. If the protection of expression is itself a restriction on freedom of expression, then we have entered a metaphysical Wonderland that stands logic on its head, and undermines core, shared global values about personhood."

In 2012, a Hong Kong court authorized to seizure of over $40 million worth of assets from bigger-than-life Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom and he's still fighting to get it back.

Early that year, the U.S. government, in conjunction with authorities in Hong Kong and New Zealand, seized the site, arrested its top executives including Dotcom, and took servers, bank accounts and other assets. At the same time, Megaupload's Hong Kong offices were raided by officers, and Dotcom's home was raided, as well, where cars and other personal assets were taken.

Currently, the $40 million is being held under restraining order, but Dotcom's legal team is trying to have those funds set aside accusing the secretary of justice in the country of not being truthful when the the application to seize was presented.

"We are applying for [the order] to be set aside because the court has misrepresented the true position," Dotcom lawyer Gerard McCoy added. "Did the secretary for justice put his cards on the table face up? This application is a clear example of the duty either being ignored or simply misunderstood."

McCoy says the prosecution withheld information during the application process, most notably that Megaupload could not even legally be served with a criminal complaint in the U.S. due to not having a U.S. mailing address. "None of this was ever brought to the attention of the judge. It was all put to one side and never raised," McCoy said. If reports are true, it took the judge less than 20 minutes to authorize the seizure after the application was submitted back then.

Google's continued practice of tweaking their search algorithm to leave out results from popular torrent sites and other warez sites has destroyed traffic to those sites and services.

Search results to popular sites like The Pirate Bay, Torrentz.eu and Kickass.to have fallen at least 45 percent in the last week, while other less known sites have seen their SEO visibility fall as much as 97 percent, effectively killing any traffic to the sites through Google.

Google started their tweaks against DMCA violators in August 2012, and began downranking sites that received high amounts of piracy-related complaints. Last year, the search giant received over 224 million DMCA takedown requests and that number is going to be much higher in 2014.

"In August 2012, we first announced that we would downrank sites for which we received a large number of valid DMCA notices," added Katherine Oyama, Google's Senior Copyright Counsel last week. "We've now refined the signal in ways we expect to visibly affect the rankings of some of the most notorious sites. This update will roll out globally starting next week."

Chinese OEM Oppo has unveiled the world's slimmest smartphone, clocking in at just 4.85mm thick.

The new Oppo R5 beats out the previous record holding Gionee Elfie S5.1, which was 5.15mm thick. Oppo is well known for pushing the envelope with its phone and the new R5 still boasts impressive specs in the small casing.

R5 owners will get a 1080p 5.2-inch display, a 64-bit Snapdragon 615 SoC (octa-core quad 2.1GHz and quad 1.5GHz), 2GB RAM, and dual 5MP/13MP cameras (both featuring f/2.0 aperture lenses). The entire phone is just 155g, has a 2000mAh battery and does include LTE support.

On the downside, there is no microSD slot, no 3.5mm headphone jack and 16GB internal storage meaning you will have to use a bundled microUSB adapter for your favorite headphones.

Oppo says the device will also feature "phase-shifting material" to ensure that internal components remain cool (just like a PC motherboard). In addition, the device runs on Android 4.4 fork Color OS 2.0, which is similar to its predecessor but includes much better gesture support and all Android upgrades.

Ready for launch in December, the device sells unlocked for $499.

Potential Xbox One owners have received a gift from Microsoft this week, with the company offering the console and select bundles at a discount.

Beginning on Sunday, November 2nd, the console will be available for $349 in the U.S., a $50 discount. The deal is extended to special edition bundles, as well, including Assassin's Creed Unity, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and Sunset Overdrive.

"Fans don't have to wait for Black Friday this year to enjoy great savings on Xbox One. We're offering our best price yet, with unprecedented choices and value, so more people can play on Xbox One this holiday," said Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president, Microsoft. "We're gearing up for one of our biggest holidays ever and we are thrilled to offer fans up to $150 in savings on Xbox One and some of the biggest blockbuster games of the season."

Here is the full list, which truly includes some slick deals:

Xbox One Assassin's Creed Bundle for $349* ERP and Xbox One Assassin's Creed Bundle with Kinect for $449* ERP features what is shaping up to be the biggest, most intense Assassin's Creed game to date: Assassin's Creed Unity as well as Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag on Xbox One. The Xbox One Assassin's Creed Bundle with Kinect also includes Dance Central Spotlight.

Amazon has announced the newest addition to their streaming lineup of devices: The Fire TV Stick.

The HDMI streaming dongle will directly compete with the popular Chromecast and Roku Stick and it will cost just $39. By comparison, the Chromecast costs $35 and the Roku Stick costs $49.

Most interestingly, Prime subscribers can pre-order the streaming stick for just $19 until Wednesday making it a pretty great value at the price.

Strangely, Amazon is selling its voice-search-enabled controller (just like the one that comes with the Fire TV set-top) separately for $29.99, but if you use the company's remote control app (which is free) you can still get voice search on your mobile devices. The device comes with access to popular Amazon features like Whispersync, X-Ray and a free month of Prime if you aren't already a member.

Different from the Chromecast, the Fire TV Stick acts more like a mini set-top box and will not have "casting" ability to mirror from the page you are on.

Although unconfirmed by Samsung as of yet, it appears that the new Android 5.0 Lollipop operating system will go live for Galaxy S5 in December.

The popular flagship device should begin its update rollout earlier in December with all users getting the update by the end of the month in all regions.

Google's latest update will also see Samsung update its TouchWiz UI to match the "Material Design" features that are key to the new OS.

According to hundreds of Twitter posts, Google Drive and its associated apps, such as Google Docs, are down, globally.

Google hasn't confirmed the outage yet, but its app status monitoring page confirms the outage:

#googledrive is down. *panic mode*

-- Eric Paré (@ericpare) October 27, 2014

Google Drive appears to be down? http://t.co/saynLW0w48 #newellfonda

-- Timothy A. Limbert (@limbert65) October 27, 2014

The dev team PanGu has announced the launch of an iOS 8.1 jailbreak app, although as of writing it is very limited.

iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad owners with iOS 8-8.1 can use the tool, but it is SSH only (and only for Windows owners) without the Cydia marketplace installed. The average consumer or casual hobbyist usually needs their jailbreaking to be automated and easy, so most will stay away from this early tool but it is an encouraging sign and hardcore fans will be using it soon.

Cydia developer saurik also noted on Reddit that the team is aware of the new exploit and is working to get the store available soon.

If you are an iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 5s, 5c, 5, 4s, iPad mini 2, 3, iPad (4th gen)/iPad Air/iPad Air 2, or last-gen iPod Touch owner with iOS 8 can try it here.

Xbox One owners now have the first full-length trailer for the upcoming live-action series "Halo: Nightfall" produced by Ridley Scott of "Alien" and "Blade Runner" fame.

Microsoft teased the series over the summer, but now we have some actual dialogue and a look at the main characters (and enemies).

The new series revolves around agent Jameson Locke who is leading an investigation into biological weapons that are targeting just humans. Halo fans will recognize Covenant soldiers and some popular weapons including the energy sword. Locke is also the protagonist in the upcoming Halo 5: Guardians.

Antsy fans will be able to stream the first episode of the series on November 10th, a day before the official release of Halo: The Master Chief Collection.